


Destroy Everything You Touch

by Glinda



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: F/M, Time War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-05-07
Updated: 2008-05-07
Packaged: 2017-10-07 05:09:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,183
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/61721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was Ace who blew up the factories at Villengard</p>
            </blockquote>





	Destroy Everything You Touch

**Author's Note:**

> Using up an orphaned prompt in the shape of the above...I've wanted to read 9 and Ace post Time War for ages so I gave up and wrote it myself. Cheers to [](http://kurisu.livejournal.com/profile)[**kurisu**](http://kurisu.livejournal.com/) for poking my grammar with a sharp stick...

He never expected to survive. When he realised what the cost of winning the war would be he no longer wanted to. Somehow he survived. He will not call it living.

Time is the greater healer, so they say. He knows better than most that time is also cruel, punishing each of us to a greater or lesser extent. He has the whole of time and space to choose from yet, the only place he has any desire to go is closed to him. Lost. Like the war. Everybody lost.

The ship is silent now. No laughter echoes in the halls, no footsteps running or creeping or bouncing. The rooms do not swap around mischievously when he's sleepy in the mornings. The gardens have the bare bleakness of mid winter, and the frost does not make delicate patterns. The butterflies are dead, he knows. The ship is hurting and will not let him help her heal. He feels her accusation and rage reflecting out at him from the walls. They ricochet around the universe restlessly, fixing anomalies and repairing tears in the fabric of reality as best he can. He sleeps little and every time he does, he sends a silent prayer to Rassilon that he will not wake.

One day he finds himself on a nondescript planet, in a different arm of the Mutters spiral from his normal haunt. It's the fourth great and bountiful human empire, the planet is mostly harmless and it might as well be Earth for all the difference there is. It's not though: it doesn't feel like Earth. That he can sense that annoys him for reasons he doesn't understand. He defeats a badly organised invasion and is left with the hollow post victory shadow and a weird half demolished sonic weapon. Finishes the job hoping for spare parts to improve his sonic screwdriver, it always pays to have a few more tricks up his sleeve. Something about the technology bugs him, so he makes a few inquiries and traces the makers back to a planet called Villengard. Finding a planet that serves as factory world to an empire, choked with fumes and harbouring some dark secrets. Investigating and plotting their downfall without making a conscious decision, which should scare him more than it does. He also finds a time agent whose colleagues call her McShane. She doesn't call him Professor, he doesn't call her Ace, that's not who they are anymore. It's been a long few years for both of them since they last met. They're halfway through a plan to blow up the factory before they realise what's happening. Blowing things up seems to be something they're still good at.

He doesn't tell her about the war, she already knows. She fought by his side for some of it, the Time Agency have their fingers in an awful lot of pies. They fall in step instinctively, understanding each other without explanation, requiring only brief exchanges. Unsure if he can manage longer sentences. His throat aches between the fumes and the strain of using his larynx so much after so long. The explosion takes out a square mile of factory and they both feel more alive than they have in years.

Afterwards he takes her a short hop forwards to see if it was worth it, or if the factories have been rebuilt. Where once stood chimney stacks and miles of concrete and barbed wire, there is a sea of greenery. The grove where they land is full of people and plants, both laden with fruit. The witnesses to the unexpected arrival of a blue box, are not dead eyed, chemical stained drones, but laughing tanned or sunburnt. It turns out Villengard is the major exporter of bananas in the galaxy these days. It's only a small patch of the planet, there are still an awful lot of factories, but somehow that makes this little patch of greenery more special. Sonic blasters across the universe are doubtless running out of batteries but the people tending and harvesting the bananas don't seem to care. The people like growing bananas, bananas, people insist, are good. Neither the Doctor nor Ace can find an argument against it.

They find a bar that serves a good brand of rum, drink a fair amount of the stuff and teach the bar tender the joys of banana daiquiris. The cocktails go down well with the locals and for a little while life tastes as sweet as the daiquiris. They stumble back to the ship, singing, through the banana groves. Arms linked with matching battered leather jackets. The sit in the open doorway of the ship and watch the slowly spinning stars above. They share a bottle of old Shobogan wine, debate the finer points of the Shadow proclamation and talk of other battles. Of battles lost and battles won. Of days when Daleks could still be fought with slightly augmented baseball bats and evil masterminds could give a decent monologue. They do not talk of Arcadia's fall, neither of them are ready to face that.

"You going to be alright on your own?" She asks, doubt lacing her voice and leaking across her face.

"You know me, I'm always alright."

"That's what I'm afraid of. I could come with you. If you needed me to. Just for a bit." Her sentences run together in a way that makes her sound younger, less certain. Fighting each other the way they did once upon a time, when even her own words seemed to fight with each other. That's not who she is anymore.

"You wouldn't stay." Not a question, a statement. "And if you did it would be because you thought I needed someone, not because you wanted to be here. That would be worse." Once upon a time they needed each other, that time is gone. They're both so much older now.

She nods, knows its true. "Offer still stands though."

"Thanks but…"

"Yeah." The silence is comfortable. He's forgotten the way that feels, the quiet space in between the noise that seems to define humans. She's looking at him speculatively, and he feels his eyebrow quirk in response, without him willing it. "Funny, this doesn't seem very you anymore. Doesn't seem right being all wood panels and decadence."

"No. Been meaning to change it again. Something simpler this time I think. Do it the old-fashioned way, not as though I don't have the time." There's bitterness there, he can feel it, but less than before. If she notices she doesn't comment.

"Need a hand? I'm good at demolishing things."

"Yeah. That'd be great."

"Wicked!" The words sound right, and the accompanying grin familiar. Not the familiar that makes his head ache and his hearts want to shrivel up and die, the good kind with a soft ache and joyous laughter in the darkness. He feels his own face crack into a mirroring grin. Infectious, that's what she is.

"Fantastic!"

She'll be gone tomorrow, but the advantage of a time machine is that tomorrow is as far away as it needs to be.


End file.
